In Shakil Solanki’s work, contrast between painterly marks and delicate drawing is always evident. In this work, suspirium de profundis / sighs from the depths, the artist has bound a series of test silkscreens on newsprint into a book of propositions. These prints run the gamut of blues, from a pale turquoise to an inky navy: an expression of the artist seeking the bluest blue. The atmospheric marks oscillate between abstract and figurative, allowing one to catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure moving through the symbolic secret garden (the site of so much of Shakil’s practice). 
 

51 x 38cm | object | book of silkscreen prints on newsprint | 34 pages | unique

 
“My earliest memories,” Shakil Solanki (b.1997) recalls, “are of a deep fascination for vibrant, glittering sari fabrics, delicately embellished statuettes of the Hindu deities, and their richly illustrated mythology books which were bought for me by my mother. These visual tropes have endured, now re-emerging in the aesthetics of my work.” Characterised by filigreed floral motifs and shades of blue, Shakil’s work explores forbidden love, lust, queer romance. His scenes are more often set in an allegorical garden at night; his figures faceless and ambiguous. The artist’s paintings, prints and drawings find inspiration in Indian and Persian miniatures, the bodies of David Hockney, the blues of Derek Jarman, and the words of Roland Barthes, among others.